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N Marion Hage: Cartemay on the Shore |
Category: Articles 5 comments 13 Oct 2006 @ 09:57 by rayon : Poetsong -I think I have made a discovery on what constitutes the final end of the Reformation and why. Like all great things, the clue was found by accident. At the same time opening up other discoveries by subject link too. If you would like me to elucidate I might be able to, here on your log of the lost staff! Meanwhile thoughts a pending . . . 13 Oct 2006 @ 09:58 by rayon : Very clever swivelling there! 19 Oct 2006 @ 17:21 by poetsong : Sure- elucidate Now you've got me curious. 24 Oct 2006 @ 14:10 by rayon : "We Europeans then have had three great religions: The Greek, which was the worship of the God of Wisdom and power: the Mediaeval, which was the worship of the God of Judgement and Consolation; the Renaissance, which was the worship of the God of Pride and Beauty: these three we have had, and now we English speaking have a fourth religion, a God of our own, but I must explain the 3 old ones first." Paraphrased: "To the Greeks what contended their religion was Foolishness. .. We are only with the help of recent investigation beginning to penetrate the depth of meaning couched under the Athenaic symbols: but note, her aegis, the mantle with the serpent fringes, in which she often, in the best statues is represented as folding up her left hand, for better guard; and the Gorgon on her shield, are both representative mainly of the chilling horror and sadness (turning men to stone as it were,) of the outmost spheres of knowledge - that knowledge which separates, in bitterness, hardness, and sorrow, the heart of the full grown man from the heart of the child. For out of imperfect knowledge spring terror, dissension, danger, and disdain; but from perfect knowledge, given by the full-revealed Athena, strength and peace, in sign of which she is crowned with olive spray, and bears the restless spear. This then was the conception of the purest Deity: and every habit of life, and every form of his art developed themselves from the seeking this bright, serene, resistless wisdom; and setting himself, as a man, to do things evermore rightly and strongly; not with ardent affection or ultimate hope, but with a resolute and continent energy of will, as knowing that for failure there was no consolation, and for sin there was no remission. And the Greek architecture rose enerring, bright, clearly defined, and self-contained. Next followed in Europe the great Christian faith, which was essentially the religion of Comfort. Its great doctrine is remission of sins; for which cause, it happens, too often, in certain phrases of Christianity, that sin and sickness themselves are partly glorified, as if, the more you had to be healed of, the more divine was the healing. The practical result of this doctrine, in art, is a continual contemplation of sin and disease, and of imaginary states of purification of them; thus we have an architecture conceived in a mingled sentiment of melancholy and aspiration, partly severe, partly luxuriant, which will bend itself to every one of our needs and fancies, and be strong or weak with us, as we are. And now note that both these - Greek and Mediaeval - perished by falsehood in their own main purpose. The Greek of Wisdom perished in a false philosophy - "Oppositions of Science, falsely so called". The mediaeval religion of Consolation perished in false comfort; in remission of sins given lyingly. It was the selling of absolution that ended the Mediaval faith. And it is the selling of Absolution which to the end of time will mark false Christianity. Pure Christianity gives her remission of sins only by ENDING them, but false Christianity gets her remission of sins by COMPOUNDing for them. There are many ways for this, we the English have beautiful little ways for buying absolution whether in low church or high, far more cunning than any of Tetzel's trading." (To be explained later on). "Then thirdly there followed the religion of pleasure, in which all Europe gave itself to luxury, ending in death. First, bals masques in every saloon, then guillotines in every square. And all these three worships issue in a vast temple building. The Revivalist worshipped Beauty, of a sort and built you Versailles and the Vatican...... Now lastly, will you tell me what we worship, and what we build? Now we have a nominal religion, to which we pay tithes of property and sevenths of time, but we have also a practical and earnest religion to which we devote nine tenths of our property and six-sevenths of our time. We dispute a great deal about the nominal religion, but we are all unanimous about this practical one, one which could be called the Goddess of Getting-On . . . ." (Written 1850) Nraye speaking - still overwhelmed by such lucidness in these tomes - I cannot single out in myself focussed application to one thought, the one mentioned above, the other words ring such bells in the ears of a deafening kind, it is hard to continue the argument I wished to raise. I request a respite of time please, and permission to return another day, and pick up the thread anew. As I said, this guy inpired Gandhi. The books are out of print, it is only through second hand book shops that these books can sometimes be had. Till later. Adieu. 26 Oct 2006 @ 12:25 by rayon : Anonymously , to finish As a result of reading the above here, it occurs to me that we are finally at the end of the counter reformation. Recently some quite interesting books came by giving an insight into Victorian Gothic ideas, and not bad reading at all. These ideas seem to be connected to the Pre-Raphaelites and the Oxford Movement too, slightly predating this writer. (a sort of continuation there). Anyway, it occurs to me that the Reformation was primarily about people wanting a cure without going to church or doing the spiritual bit which including fasting at given times in the year, advent and lent, not to mention every Friday with no meat(ayurvedically this would have raised the spiritual level physically by the time of two days later, a Sunday when mindful presence at prayer etc would have taken place - this like many other facets of people's traditions, including very much so the Jewish incidentally [talk about not changing much over the eons actually provides a useful insight ancient practices, not a criticism]). Essentially the Medieval era and church world developed the curative aspect of herbalism (like Ayurveda in India) traditionally since the roman times and greek alongside the spiritual aspects. In otherwords the whole cure, and hence a Holy tradition is formed. The monks in the abbeys and cathedrals did much work in the area of the sick and homeless. To poor people they allowed free treatment, especially if they were not absolutely sure of a herbs or discipline's effect. It has come to me that the reformation came about because people wanted a cure without necessarily going to church and doing whatever the church recommended both spiritually and herbally. (They wanted to be cured even if they did drink 20 coffees a day and never fasted say). I also believe that the practice of confession, is allied to this idea, in that when someone had done something like drink 20 coffees in two days because he loved it so much, he would be able to go to confession and get a reminder of the things he should do instead of drinking coffee. The cubicle would hide both the monk, priest, (who could be a different one each time) and also the coffee drinker keeping anonimity for the more serious situations. Why I say we have come to the end of the end of the counter reformation is because now, having turned full circle, many many institutions are resorting to healing and cures with natural methods plus "a pulling back from the exciting things of fast living etc" which actually equates with a return to the spiritual in the whole healing aspect. The Free livers time seems to have run its course, with many people now reflecting on their lifestyles and choices to improve their overall vitality and awarenes. The writer quoted above wrote widely, but none of his works are published on the web. This is quite curious. Given yes, his style is a little archaic, but that is only because many people are unfamiliar with church attending and reading the classics Latin and Greek and therefore all his references will remain quite obscure and therefore possibly meaningless. However, he is a writer of such importance that he could be blamed for Communisim, Feminism, and goodness knows how many other isms here today. If his writings are taken out of context, our favourite pastime, all manner of things can be indicated. However, as a church goer from early schoold days, and with knowledge of the classics, my reading of his work suggests to me, via his characterisation of historical periods and their allegiances one way or another, the real reason for the reformation. The Monks in the abbeys were used to getting money for their remedies and advice on all sorts of horrific and mystifying illnesses and situations (black magic was then as now) and if the populace got the idea that the monks had a monopoly on the treatments etc, and a wealth of finance from it, they could have easily during a string of good summers with plentiful food etc taken it upon themselves to break apart the aparent hegemony of the Church as it was then. Taking the herbal knowledge as best they could themselves and doing away with costly church going. To make up for their losses the monks on their part in hard up times had the idea of selling remission for sins and also selling bits of saints relics or items, just to keep their own lives in tact, and to pay for all the scribing and other vital tasks they performed in the community. The writer, whom I deliberately do not name, would not have necessarily been aware of the huge role the abbeys played in the keeping the communities fed and healthy, but only the selling of absolution aspects of Gothic times, which of course followed the famous Dark Ages - which I believe were not all that Dark to them but only ourselves now. And to bring this DISCUSSION into the present day, as the end of the counter reformation, I also believe that together with the speeding up of global warming and climate change, the tendency of the majority's liking for the range of foods which fall into the "heating" or hot category: coffee, alcohol, reat meat, cheese, chocolate, sunbathing, rushing around at midday, together with a total lack of knowledge of the effects of other foods like salad and frozen and dried foods or the effects of these at different times of the year - will actually precipate a crisis when the two meet at break level: hot climate plus all effects of hot food (with no chance of cooling down because one does not know enough about this state in the organic world and how to bring it about in one's own body, a cool state). This phrase will cause some mirth, but it is meant in reality. The good news is that having come full circle, we could be again looking at global holistic solutions, living on slow food, in slow time, which would be a return to pre reformation methods. One of the ways to halt global warming is for everyone to treat life as spiritual and precious, meditate or church go. This way Earth would not have to concern itself with remedying the wrongdoings of humanity but could concentrate on righting itself, ayurvedically, making the seasons fall in pattern to enable crops' fruition etc. Other entries in Articles 1 Dec 2008 @ 17:59: Update 1 Apr 2008 @ 15:00: Movie/Books status 1 Dec 2007 @ 18:22: Hi everyone. Updates 1 May 2007 @ 16:21: Updates 31 Oct 2006 @ 13:19: The beauty of Middle Earth 29 Oct 2006 @ 23:06: Perspective 20 Oct 2006 @ 01:24: Sojourner finds a friendly tree 20 Oct 2006 @ 01:06: Some forests are angry 8 Oct 2006 @ 23:01: The Invisible Seer 8 Oct 2006 @ 22:50: Breaking the spell
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8 Oct 2006 @ 23:10, by N Marion Hage